California-type gun laws might have blocked Florida attack

Students and other members of the community gather Thursday at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley to remember those killed in the Florida shooting and call for action against gun violence.
James Cacciatore — Special to the Marin Independent Journal

Three variations of the AR-15 assault rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice. While the guns look similar, the bottom version is illegal in California because of its quick reload capabilities.
Rich Pedroncelli — the associated press, file

In the wake of one of the deadliest mass shootings in the nation’s history this week at a Parkland, Florida high school, gun-control advocates are once again demanding tougher laws across the country like those already enacted in places like California.

Would they have made a difference and saved lives? Gun rights advocates were skeptical, arguing the focus should be on stopping criminals and the mentally disturbed rather than restricting access to weapons.

“The banning of the firearms used in the commission of crimes will not stop the commission of crimes by criminals or people who are mentally disturbed,” said Sam Paredes executive director of Gun Owners of California. “As long as the focus is on guns and not on the individuals who commit these crimes, these crimes are going to continue to happen.”

But gun control advocates like Amanda Wilcox, legislative advocate for the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign, said California-style laws would have not only limited the deadliness of the shooter’s gun but provided extra measures to disarm him before he set off on his rampage.

“One is preventing shooting in first place,” Wilcox said. “The other is decreasing the lethality within a specific incident.”

Florida, where 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz fatally shot 17 students and staff at his former high school with an AR-15 assault rifle, has no state restrictions on assault weapons, ammunition magazine capacity or private firearm sales. Cruz legally bought his assault rifle at a local gun shop.

Marin response

The school attack and the gun issues prompted a strong response from some Marin students.

Tamalpais High School students are taking action to address “the normalization of gun violence and the failure to address the threat of school shootings,” according to a statement released Thursday. Students took the first step Thursday night by organizing a candlelight vigil at the Mill Valley school in remembrance of those killed in the Florida attack.

The Tamalpais students are initiating a semester-long campaign “to act against gun violence and to amplify student voice politically, culturally, and socially on this issue.”

A federal assault weapons ban enacted in 1994 and authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that also prohibited magazines with more than 10-round capacity was allowed to expire 10 years later. Lawmakers cited studies showing it had little effect on shooting deaths because the weapons were seldom used in crimes and spree shootings were relatively rare. Congressional efforts to reinstate it have failed, most recently in 2013.

By contrast, California has some of the nation’s most restrictive gun laws. Among other things, it is illegal to buy or possess military-style assault rifles. Those are generally defined as semiautomatic firearms with pistol grips and detachable, multi-round ammunition clips that allow the shooter to quickly and accurately fire multiple shots before having to reload.

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‘Bullet button’

California law bans firearms with detachable high-capacity ammunition magazines — including those with a so-called “bullet button” that aimed to get around detachable clip restrictions. State law also limits magazine capacity to no more than 10 rounds.

“Assault weapons or military weapons have features on the gun that let you maintain control and aim, and exchangeable magazines where you can quickly and easily reload and maintain your fire,” Wilcox said. “That’s how you can kill so many people.”

But California also has laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of disturbed people.

California also requires all firearms sales to be conducted through a licensed dealer who conducts a background check, and starting in July 2019 will require background checks on ammunition purchases as well.

California is the only state in the country with an Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS) program to track firearm owners and provide legal authority to disarm convicted criminals, people with certain mental illnesses, and others deemed dangerous.

And California two years ago enacted one of the nation’s only “gun violence restraining order” laws, one that gun-control advocates said might have been able to disarm Cruz by letting police or family members petition a court to temporarily remove weapons from a troubled person.

“The problem is that there are people who are not prohibited from owning a gun, they haven’t committed a crime yet, they have never been hospitalized for mental health, yet they’re at risk for violence,” Wilcox said. “Under this law, family members or law enforcement can petition a court for a temporary firearm prohibition where there’s a risk of harm to one’s self or others.”

Mental health

Last month, San Diego authorities used the law to disarm a man who had been shooting at raccoons and rats in his neighborhood while drunk. He was forced to surrender his guns for a year.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, is reintroducing legislation that would allow school officials, employers, coworkers and mental health officials to file for such restraining orders as well. Gov. Jerry Brown had vetoed such a measure two years ago, arguing the gun violence restraining orders were too new at the time to warrant expansion.

“We really felt as we started seeing more incidents in the workplace as well as schools that it was so important to expand the number of people who could access that restraining order,” Ting said.

Paredes said that while gun-rights advocates generally support measures that give law enforcement more tools to stop would-be killers before they go on a rampage, he’s skeptical of measures like gun violence restraining orders that he said focus on the weapon.

“They try to demonize guns instead of demonizing behavior,” Paredes said. “As long as you do that, you’ll continue to have the behavior.”

A more effective approach, he said, would be to simply ask police to conduct a mental health check on the person.

But Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis Medical Center, said “a gun violence restraining order could have made the difference here.”

Menacing intent

Students had apparently believed Cruz, who had been expelled for “disciplinary reasons” according to the county sheriff, was a likely candidate to “shoot up the school.” Last year the FBI investigated a 2017 YouTube comment that said “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” though the agency said it couldn’t identify him as the speaker.

“It appears that there was plenty of advance notice” of Cruz’ menacing intent, Wintemute added.

President Donald Trump on Thursday called Cruz “mentally disturbed” on Twitter and urged people to “report such instances to authorities, again and again!”

That drew criticism from gun-control advocates who noted he had eliminated a proposal that would have red-flagged about 75,000 people in gun background checks who receive Social Security mental health disability payments and needed help from others managing their benefits.

Gun-rights groups argued the proposed rule was overly broad. Paredes said it would affect many elderly people who otherwise were not a public risk.

“It would be inherently and grossly unfair to many citizens of America,” Paredes said.